| |
Religious Life Without Integrity
The Sexual Abuse Crisis
in the Catholic Church
By Barry M Coldrey
10: ZERO TOLERANCE
There is zero tolerance throughout the Western
world for child sex offenders. In fact, child molestation has been among
the serious crimes for a long time. However, for most of that time, it
was occasionally prosecuted. Over the last twenty years, there has been
an exponential rise in prosecutions and convictions.
In Sydney, within the last year or two, in
the Said Morgan case, a jury acquitted a former policeman who killed a
suspected paedophile. There was the following comment in a national weekly:
'If that jury represents public opinion, then the Morgan case suggests
we see killing a suspected paedophile as reasonable. Morgan certainly
thought so - he says that he would do the same thing again.' In a special
MORGAN POLL it was asked inter alia, 'If the victim had molested one of
the killer's children, 49% said they would acquit. (Ragg, M. 'They killed
and walked', The Bulletin (Sydney), 19 August 1997, p.20.)
In Wollongong, after the murder of former
local M.P./Mayor, Frank Arkell, there was little sympathy since Arkell
was widely suspected of being a long-standing child molester and was facing
abuse-related charges. 'At the crime scene, one neighbour said, unsolicited:
'He got was a sexual predator who deserved what he got...The lives of
many of his victims were destroyed when they were too young to defend
themselves.' (Martin, B. 'Chasing bloody shadows', The Bulletin,
(Sydney) 7 July 1998, p. 20.
'Catholic priests have been bashed, publicly
abused and their homes subject to graffiti attacks in unprecedented displays
of hostility', Bishop Geoffrey Robinson said. 'The incidents were linked
to widespread public anger directed at priests over child abuse allegations.'
(Haslem, B. and Hutchings, B. 'Public bash, abuse Catholic priests', Australian,
26 September 1997, p. 5.)
However, it is not only in the Western world
that sexual molestation is considered evil. In 1997 the following incident
was reported from southern India. 'A Catholic missionary in India has
been beaten publicly, stripped and made to walk, naked and bleeding through
the streets of a southern town three miles after being accused by a pupil
of sexual abuse. The episode was arranged by students of the Santal tribe
in the high school in Dumka, Bihar, the homeland of the Santal people,
where Jesuits from Sicily and Malta set up a mission in 1930.' 'Police
look on as priest is stripped and beaten' The Tablet, 13
September 1997, p. 1167.
Why this extreme hostility - monsterisation
- towards paedophiles of recent years, after decades in which child abuse
was recognised only rarely, is a subject which social scientists will
ponder for some time. However, the hostility is there and it affects the
church. Seldom has a respected organisation's reputation been picked so
bare.
Two years have passed since the author referred
to the community's attitude of 'zero tolerance' to child sex offenders.
The evidence accumulates that with the passing of time the community attitudes
have continued to harden, not relax on this matter.
(Francis Hogan killed Seamus Tubritt at Ardmore,
Waterford, 9 December 1997) 'A Waterford man was yesterday found not guilty
of murder but guilty of the manslaughter of a man stabbed in the heart as
he lay on a sofa. A jury of six women and six men accepted the defence case
that Francis Hogan lost control after being taunted with reminders of the
physical and sexual abuse he endured at a Christian Brothers school...from
the age of eight until he left St Joseph's, Fairyhouse, Clonmel, Hogan was
physically and sexually abused by a Christian Brother. ('Jury accepts defence
of sex abuse memories', The Irish Times, 10 July 1999, p. 5)
'If they prey on children, they can't defend
themselves. They give up their right to live in society safely...these people
have to understand that their behaviour isn't going to be tolerated. The
Rileys, Stephen and Niobi, did something few would defend but perhaps many
would privately empathise with...they dropped leaflets into the letterboxes
of more than a thousand nearby homes. 'Public warning,' the leaflets read,
'The man with the little dog from (street deleted) has molested a child.'
The incident has echoes of another recent episode in NSW in which a convicted
child killer, released from prison after 25 years, was hounded from his
home by an angry, hysterical mob.' (Gibson, R. 'The price of vigilance',
The Age, 9 August 1999, p. T1, T3)
|
|